So far, though, that hasn't impressed Ford, who has said he will leave Gucci if Arnault takes control. "We don't believe his synergies," De Sole says. "I find it preposterous that he thinks he can come and help us. He should fix his own brands. Except for Vuitton, his fashion brands are doing terribly. The only synergy that would exist would be for myself and Mr. Ford to come over and fix Christian Dior!"

Actually, the scope and complexity of Arnault's sprawling combine of luggage, clothes, couture, perfumes, accessories, and drinks makes his companies' performance hard to track. De Sole is not the first to argue that Arnault is better at buying prestigious brands cheaply than at running them. Arnault's hardball tactics have left plenty of bruises.

Arnault's career began with a hard bargain. At the age of 27, without his father's knowledge, he arranged to sell the family's construction business to the Rothschild family's Societé Nationale de Construction, then convinced his father the deal was a good idea.

He entered the fashion business almost by accident. After a brief career as a real-estate developer and a short stint in the U.S., he began shopping for a company to buy with the money he'd earned by selling his family's company. In 1984, his sights landed on the bankrupt French textile conglomerate Boussac, which happened to own the Christian Dior couture house. The French government had taken it over and was seeking to unload it. There were several bidders interested, including Louis Vuitton. But Arnault had an early edge because his first wife, Anne Dewavrin, was a cousin of the bankrupt owners, and he began by buying a stake from them. Then, with professions of his intent to maintain the company's payroll, Arnault persuaded the French government to sell him the rest.

Within five years, however, he had laid off 8,000 workers and sold off almost all of its manufacturing assets for about $500 million. The sell-off made Arnault one of the wealthiest men in France, but it won him few friends in French labor groups. (The government eventually forced him to repay about $60 million of the money it had invested in the company.)

Arnault focused his attention on Dior, began dining at the glamorous Paris restaurant Maxim's, and quickly grew enamored of the fashion world. "What would be very interesting and rewarding for all of us," he told his aides, "would be to create the No. 1 luxury-product group in the world. Let's try to do it."

In 1988, he began to buy LVMH stock. "It's like an art collector. You buy a painting thinking in three or four years it will increase in value, and in the meantime you'll have something that pleases you," he told Women's Wear Daily. "I preferred buying up shares in LVMH rather than, say, IBM."

LVMH, one of its founders once said, was like a marriage that raced too fast to the altar. The Moët and Hennessy families had just formed the company by joining their cognac and champagne business with the Vuittons' fashion holdings. American-style takeovers were proliferating in Europe, and the families sought shelter in the clout of their combined companies.

Still fearing hostile bids, the Moët-Hennessy families suggested inviting their distribution ally Guinness to acquire a 20 percent stake in the company. The prospect spooked the Vuittons, who feared it would tip the internal balance of power. So Henry Racamier, a 75-year-old self-made steel magnate who had married into the Vuitton clan and taken charge of its business, responded by seeking backers of his own. His new investor was Bernard Arnault, who Racamier saw as a protégé.

The night after the two men met to set the timing of Arnault's investment, Arnault drove to the home of a Lazard Frères banker he knew from the Boussac deal. There he met with the leader of the Moët-Hennessy faction. Without telling Racamier, Arnault changed sides. He formed a new organization with Guinness's support to buy shares in LVMH. The venture eventually took a 37 percent stake.